Ex-Obama White House Counsel Expects Indictment

Attorneys for former White House Counsel Gregory B. Craig said Wednesday that he expects to face federal charges in the coming days in relationship to legal work he did for the Ukrainian government in 2012, The Washington Post reports.

The expected indictment — which his attorneys called “a misguided abuse of prosecutorial discretion” — stems from work Craig did with GOP lobbyist Paul Manafort on behalf of the Ukrainian Ministry of Justice in 2012. At the time, Craig was a partner at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, the law firm he joined after ending his tenure as White House counsel for President Barack Obama. Manafort, the former campaign chairman to President Trump, pleaded guilty last year to charges related to his Ukraine lobbying. Craig resigned from Skadden in April 2018 amid a building investigation into whether the firm’s lawyers failed to register as foreign lobbyists for their Ukraine engagement. Prosecutors have been investigating whether Craig issued false statements to the Justice Department in 2013 as officials made inquiries to the firm about whether its work required public registration, people familiar with the case said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe the ongoing probe.

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